Views from Sky Tower

Bridge to another part of Auckland

View of the street below through glass in the floor of the Observation Deck on 50th floor

Lots of green at the end of summer

Church getting a face lift

Lots of glass skyscrapers

Signage to restaurants and bars and 60th floor

Another church

Me and the Sky Tower

 

Auckland New Zealand

 We flew from Phoenix to San Francisco on Tuesday evening and after a 13 hour flight arrived in Auckland Thursday morning around 9:00. (International Date Line)

The airport had a very cool entry to the customs and baggage area. 

We met up with our party of seven at the hotel which serves High Tea and has charming tea sets in each room. 

We went for lunch and two of the guys tried Kwak beer. Interesting way to serve the beer at our lunch stop. 

Then onto the Sky Tower for a trip to the 60th floor for views of the city. 

This will probably be the look of blog posts on this trip until later when WiFi and time are more available. 

The World Series (geocaching)

 A Valley geocacher who loves baseball, created puzzle geocaches about the World Series beginning with the first games in 1903. Hubby enjoyed doing the research to get the correct numbers to solve the World Series puzzles, all 62 of the puzzles. Several other geocachers were interested in finding the string of geocaches so a plan was made to walk in the desert on Sunday. The temperature was to be in the low 60s, perfect for a day of desert geocaching, an hour north of the Apache Junction.

heading to the first geocache

the desert is so green and quite lush right now

clouds and mountains and dirt roads

only one short road was drivable, these were walk to geocaches

buds on the staghorn cactus

wildflower sighting

one trunk developed into two saguaros

spiny goldenbush (?)

firecracker penstemon 

a LARGE animal burrow

the mountains are covered in green

lupine 

staghorn buds

caches were all easy to find

hanging in the trees

5Gs + 1B

(Sherry, Vicki, me, Hubby, Paula & Mary)

looking for ONE MORE cache, but no luck!

The price to pay for caching in the desert...boot soles filled with stickers & thorns. The left boot is clean, using a tweezers and a needle-nosed pliers. Hubby said he cleaned his boots but I bet they weren't as clean as mine!

the little stickers/thorns in the waste basket

It was a successful and fun day! We logged 64 caches on Sunday, had a great lunch at Twin Peaks and an enjoyable day with the other 4Gs. 

Historic Stairs in Mining Towns

 We drove to Miami and Globe on Friday (last week) to do some more geocaching in the two communities that have a history in copper mining. Some of the stairs were built to help students get to and from school and are still accessible. Some of the stairs were built in the mid-1930s by the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) and formalized routes first created as shortcuts by the residents. Geocaching made us aware of the staircases in the communities built on the sides of hills. An artist program in Globe decorated the stairways in the photos in this blog post.

a LOT of stairs!

painted marbles

quail stairs

tiles on these smaller steps

painted decor on the bridge steps

stairs and a bridge

painted poppies on another LONG set of stairs

(students using these stairs)

in Globe

I did not take any photos of the stairs in Miami as they were not decorated

this mural is in Superior, another mining community

Broad Street in Globe

another mural in Globe

The other reason for visiting Globe last Friday was to attend an event hosted by our geocaching friends, Sherry and Jon. On March 1, 1872 Yellowstone became the world's first National Park. The event was a gathering to celebrate National Parks. Those of us attending who had a National Park T-shirt wore it to the event and were in a group photo. (There were other geocachers in attendance!)

There are so many California poppies growing along the road through Miami and Globe and they were all in full glory on Friday. There was a planter with one poppy in the little park where we gathered for the geo event. The one bloom made me very happy. I got my poppy photos for the season!

A Busy Social Week, Last Week

 It is always like this, this time in the season; social gatherings trying to get everything in before everyone leaves for the summer. And no matter how hard we try to not have this frantic social calendar, it just happens and we participate and then complain and say, "not next year!"

The first big gathering was the annual Java Gathering at San Tan Flat last Wednesday.

my home town, Hubby's first teaching job

44 people registered for the evening

good food and good conversations

Leap Day, February 29th

Leap Day is a big deal in the geocaching community. I hosted an event at a local restaurant's patio. We arrived early and I thought I'd have time for a margarita before the geocachers arrived. About 60 people registered for the event. More good food and wonderful conversations at the tables. I finished the drink 2 hours later!

the hostess and her side-kick

the virtual souvenir we earned for the day